Originally Posted by Damien_White
You're right old fart. I did contribute to the "history" of stuffing up over the years. I screwed it up royally in Tasmania one year. I recall the sick feeling in my stomach, the cold sweat, the "oh sh!t what have I done", the "how could I stuff something so simple".
I screwed up another time when we had the International drivers test day at QR. I insisted we work into the schedule a dummy start procedure so they knew how we did it....well I goofed up the first of them too!
And as Aaron Noonan told the commentators on the weekend, I also got fumbly fingers a few years ago with the Super2 start at Adelaide.
It's easy to default to a view of "how could it be so hard? Flick a switch or press a button and away you go". However, while the function of the action is that easy, the adrenaline of having 26 engines pinging on the limiter for what feels like an eternity is immense. It's can be a very intense moment and as hard as it to relate, it's easy to be trigger happy.
The red lights are to go on 5 secs after the board, and then go off 3-5 secs later. While this gives a 8-10 sec window, the reality is most engines are screaming at 7500 as soon as the green flag waves at the back of grid. The flag, of course, is a reference for the starter that the grid is set, but between the green flag and the 5 sec board there's the message to come from race control that it's in the starters hands, and the starter will also do a final scan looking for any anomalies. In other words, if the driver starts loading the clutch and sitting on the limiter at the green flag, it can be as much as 5 secs more. So, now you're talking the sound of 26 cars on the limiter for 13-15 secs - something which can definitely cause a nervous twitch.
I remember one time, at Phillip Island, all cars were in place, the green flag was being waved, and in those few secs where you scan for anomalies something triggered in my head as being odd with a car on the front row (I think it was Nick Percat). In the right light, you can normally see a burning fuel haze coming from the exhaust of a car. For some reason it struck me that it wasn't coming from that car and my mind said it wasn't running. So you have a few seconds to decide to abort, delay or continue. In that instance I took the right path, but it's an example of there being plenty to think about beyond flicking a switch.
Sorry for my ramble, however if it was twitchy fingers in Adelaide on the weekend, please cut some slack. It can be stressful to the point of forcing error.
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